work, with,—"Shouldn't wonder if Hammond was at this moment 'Surgeon-General,' and had been for some time."
"You don't mean to say, Mr. President," asked Dr. B. in surprise, "that the appointment has been made?"
"I may say to you," returned Mr. Lincoln, for the first time looking up, "that it has,' only you needn't tell of it just yet."
In August, 1864, the prospects of the Union party, in reference to the Presidential election, became very gloomy. A friend, the private secretary of one of the cabinet ministers, who spent a few days in New York at this juncture, returned to Washington. with so discouraging an account of the political situation, that after hearing it, the Secretary told him to go over to the White House and repeat it to the President. My friend said that he found Mr. Lincoln alone, looking more than usually careworn and sad. Upon hearing the statement, he walked two or three times across the floor in silence. Returning, he said with grim earnestness of tone and manner: "Well, I cannot run the political machine; I have enough on my hands without that. It is the people's business,—the election is in their hands. If they turn their backs to the fire, and get scorched in the rear, they'll find they have got to 'sit' on the 'blister'!"
Mr. Lincoln came to have an almost morbid dread of office-seekers, from whose importunity the
